I'm sure it's a timing issue, but I haven't been able to duplicate the problem in testing. I think it hangs in $SIG{CHLD} since when I set the child $SIG{CHLD} to 'IGNORE', the problem goes away. It could be perl, linux or my program.
If I find a way to duplicate it, I'll let you know. Regards.

Yes, if you find a way to duplicate this with a fairly simple program, I'd like to run it and see if I can replicate it also.

I don't have a Linux machine myself, but I do have access to a 64 bit Linux, active-state 64 bit installation on a remote machine. I can hammer on this machine during the evenings and on the weekends.

Setting $SIG{CHLD} = 'IGNORE' should cause the low level sigaction() structure to be set. Once that happens, Perl has nothing at all to do with this signal as Perl would never even see the signal. So if this causes a "reap" of the child, I can see why this doesn't cause a problem.

Anyway, if you can make this happen more often than once every 24 hours, then I have a way to make a couple of runs on the weekend when the college's server is at a low usage level.